Never Trust a Martian

This is my first entry in the Beyond Star Trek blogathon hosted by Hamlette's Soliloquy and Me

So is it kismet that one of Leonard Nimoy's first appearances on the screen was as an alien?  No, not as Spock.  15 years before that iconic role Nimoy played a Martian (zombie) in the 12 part serial Zombies of the Stratosphere.

Nimoy had a rocky start to his career before Star Trek.  He got the title role in Kid Monk Baroni, but that film failed at the box office, so Nimoy made a decision to just take whatever he could get, which usually resulted in his being an "also-ran" in the credits.  Of course, when Star Trek went into production he was in the title credits, albeit behind William Shatner, but before that you would have been hard pressed to notice his name in the credits.

In particular with Zombies, Nimoy's name only appears third in the list of the secondary characters, behind the 5 primary stars that appear in the first on screen credits.  And Nimoy (as Narab) is basically just a gofer in the film.  For most of the 12 part serial his sole line is usually just "Yes, sir" to the orders of Marex, the leader of the Martian entourage.  But even with that secondary status you can't miss Nimoy's face, and voice.

"Zombies" by the way, is a misnomer.  There are no real zombies, not ones you would think of anyway.  Even the 50's version of zombies.  In fact, you never even hear the Martians referred to as "zombies" until the final reel. But then, as we will see, the Martians are a sci-fi substitute for a much closer "alien" force which many in the West probably considered "zombies" in the 50's.

Zombies of the Stratosphere (1952):

As a group of government agents (Inter-Planetary Patrol) watch, an alien spaceship enters Earth's atmosphere.

Since they don't have any idea of it's intentions Larry Martin ( Judd Holdren) is dispatched to check it out.  Why Larry?  Because he has a spacesuit with rockets attached to his back.  (Note:  Although he is never called Commander Cody in this film, the outfit is almost an exact replica of the one used by that character in other films.  In fact, this was supposed to be a sequel to Radar Men from the Moon, but apparently some snafu involving a projected TV series starring Commander Cody caused the people in charge to have to change the name).

Before Larry can get to the ship though, Marex (Lane  Bradford) and his assistant Narab (Leonard Nimoy) have unloaded some supplies and take off with a couple of nefarious goons who met them at the landing site.  Marex and Narab go to a local (mad) scientist's lab/house where Dr.Harding (Stanley Waxman) is the go-to contact.

The Martians have a plan.  You see, the climate on Mars is pretty shabby.  So the Martians want to build an H-bomb which, when strategically planted, will blow the Earth out of it's orbit, thus allowing Mars to take its place in the Earth's orbit.  (And if you have trouble with the logic of that, you are probably in the wrong theater...)  They want Dr. Harding to help them in their construction of the H-bomb.

So why do they think Harding will be a willing participant?  Well, Harding has been selling state secrets to a competing power (Russia?) and the Martians threaten to reveal his shenanigans if he doesn't cooperate.  (See, even on Mars they understand the concept of "blackmail"...)

The Martians and their Earthling cohorts proceed to try various attempts at hijacking shipments of uranium.  One gets the idea that uranium wasn't all that much of a high priority item as these shipments didn't have hordes of armed forces personnel assigned to guard them.  (But then if they did, Larry Martin and his jet suit would have been pretty much an after thought, if not an unwanted presence. )

Over the course of the 12 part serial we get the typical "cliffhanger", scenes where Larry or one of his associates is trapped and apparently rides off to their death, only to have the next episode reveal some incredible luck to have them survive to fight anther day.

The only real question throughout the entire serial is why only two guys and one girl are involved in the desperate struggle to keep the Martians from fulfilling their nefarious plans.  Are we dependent only on one guy in a jet pack and a few pistols to save the Earth?  (And there is another question.  If the Martians are so advanced, why don't they have ray guns?  Even the Martians resort to primitive pistols.  And none of them are good shots.... I think only one person in the entire serial takes a bullet, but there must have been close to a hundred fired over the course of the serial.)

Probably the funniest part of the serial (though it probably wasn't INTENDED to be funny) is the appearance of a robot.  The robot has some laser powered arms, but on several occasions it just fights with its fists like the rest of the cast.

Although the villain in the film are Martians, this film could have easily subsituted Russians for the Martians and not suffered too much.  To be sure, the plot to switch the orbit of Mars with Earth might have had to be altered somewhat, but then again, the underlying plot was not much more  ridiculous than some of the plots to any James Bond film.  So maybe SMERSH (a frequent James Bond nemesis) could have planned it and was going to colonize Mars with its "New Order".

One must take into consideration when watching this or virtually any other serial that the potential audience for them was mostly kids.  You didn't really need a coherent plot, just losts of fist fights and gun play and an eventual triumph by the heroes.

Personally I'm an advocate for the return of the serial.  I think it would be an improvement on the theater experience.

Well, folks time to fire up the jet packs.  Drive safely, folks.

Quiggy

Martian Menace

This is my entry in the Made in 1938 Blogathon hosted by Pop Culture Reverie and In the Good Old Days of Classic Hollywood. 




Back in the 30's and 40's, a trip to the movies was like an all-day sucker.  You got more than just one film (and I don't mean an interminable series of coming attractions).  You got a newsreel (this being before television nightly newscasts), a cartoon, maybe even a second feature, but you also sometimes got what were referred to as serials.  Usually these would be a 15 part series that continued weekly, and you had to go back every week to see how the serial hero (or heroine) got out of the last cliffhanger predicament.

Hank Davis in his excellent two part book series Classic Cliffhangers describes the serials as as "classic examples of early low-budget filmmaking."  He even credits the bad ones as "silly and stilted, but always charming and sometimes bizarre."  The serial actually got it's start in the silent film days, mainly with a 1914 series called "The Perils of Pauline", but it really took off in the early 30's.  You could go see many of the action stars of the day in a weekly recounting of an adventure, which almost always ended with the hero in some predicament that left the audience anticipating how he or she would get out of it, thus insuring a return next week.

The serials weren't always well-acted, which explains why a lot of the serial stars never made the transition from serials to major motion picture star status.  (John Wayne being one of the exceptions, who got his start in three serials from the 30's; The Shadow of the Eagle, The Hurricane Express,  and The Three Musketeers.)  Serials are something that I think could improve the movie experience today  I find them enjoyable, and although I tend to watch them all in their entirety in one sitting, I think I could enjoy a weekly ongoing adventure if one were done right.

Flash Gordon's Trip to Mars (1938):

Firstly, one of the neatest things about this serial is the opening.  If you are familiar with serials, each episode, after the credits, usually included an encapsulation of what has gone on before.  In some serials this was a voice over and in others it was just a text on screen.  In this serial they added a twist that I hadn't seen in other serials I watched.  A Martian guard appears before a screen and adjusts the screen which segments through four visuals on the screen.  It looks like a comic strip panel from the Flash Gordon comic strip, and to my untrained eye, it looks like they might have even been drawn by the artist, Alex Raymond, who actually drew the comic strip at the time.

Flash Gordon (Buster Crabbe), accompanied by Dale Arden (Jean Rogers) and Dr. Zarkov (Frank Shannon) are returning from having defeated the evil megalomaniacal Ming the Merciless (in the 1936 serial Flash Gordon). But the Earth is in serious danger.

A series of devastating earthquakes and floods and other natural disaster is wreaking havoc on the planet.  Initially it is thought that the planet Mongo, which is still in proximity of the Earth, is the source of the havoc.  Flash, along with Dale and Dr. Zarkov head off to find out what's going on.  Unfortunately they have a stowaway in the persona of Happy Hapgood (Donald Kerr), a reporter who has managed to insinuate himself on to the ship.

 But it soon becomes clear that Mars is the actual culprit, emitting a beam that is sucking all the nitron (which I think may be movie-ese for nitrogen) from the Earth's atmosphere. And while the Queen of Mars,  Azura (Beatrice Roberts), is behind the evil plan, Ming (Charles B. Middleton) is also helping.  Which becomes a surprise to Flash (and anyone who watched the first serial), because at the end of the last adventure it seemed apparent that Ming had perished.  But as anyone can tell you, you can't keep a bad man down.

 The reason behind the nefarious plan to steal the Earth's nitron is Azura needs it to defeat the Clay People, a race on Mars that refuses to bow down to Azura's rule.  Azura is an expert of magic, which allows her to change recalcitrant subjects into Clay People and also to disappear at will.  (You would think if she had that kind of magic she could just eliminate the threat of the Clay People with a wave of her hand, but if she could, there would be no adventure...)  Azura's magic derives from a white sapphire which she is never without.

Flash and company land on Mars, but not without consequence.  The rocketship they used to get there is destroyed, so there is apparently no going back.  But Flash is unperturbed, as is usual for a hero.  His only goal is to save the Earth, and nothing is going to stop him from completing his mission.  That is unless Ming and Azura can prevent him from doing so.

Over the course of the 15 episode serial, Flash and friends continually find themselves gaining the upper hand, only to find the advantage disappear with alarming regularity.  Of course, as was necessary with the cliffhanger theme, each episode ends with Flash apparently finally defeated, only to have some twist of fate (or deus ex machina) appear to save him from his imminent demise.

Some things that appeal to me are:  One, the Clay People, although initially distrusting of Flash, eventually become his ally when they realize that he really intends to try to help them.  (The Clay People are, for some reason, not able to do much against Azura on their own because part of their curse is they cannot leave the cave in which they dwell.)  Montague Shaw as the king of the Clay People and his tribe eventually do come around to Flash's way of thinking, however.  And Prince Barin (Richard Alexander, who looks like he could have been a professional wrestler), who had allied with Flash on Mongo in the previous serial appears on the scene to help Flash in his quest.

Eventually it becomes evident that Ming is working at cross-purposes.  He is supposed to be helping Azura in her quest to defeat the Clay people, but what Ming really wants is to take over Azura's throne.  (you didn't really expect a guy like Ming to be a supportive ally, did you?) 

The fight scenes are the only down-side to this serial.  They look entirely fake, and some look like those fake moves they pull in the WWF.  Which makes Alexander all the more possible as a pro-wrestler in a previous life. Even the special effects look positively new age by comparison.

 Of course, I don't need to tell you that Flash and company are victorious in the end.  And I probably don't have to tell you that Ming is once again vanquished, apparently for good.  (But since he is once again the villain in the third serial, Flash Gordon Conquers the Universe, that should come as no surprise either.)

Flash Gordon not only became an icon in the 30's serials and in comic strips, he became, briefly, a hero on the radio, and when television was in its infancy, a television star.  He was also the star of a series of novels back in the 70's.  A feature film in 1980 reintroduced Flash Gordon to a new generation.  And recently the SYFY channel tried its hand ant producing a new TV series.  It certainly appears that Flash is still an attractive commodity, even if he doesn't quite become the franchise that a Superman or a Batman might have become.  But he does have some appeal.  Primarily, at least for me, that he relies on his athletics and wits, rather than his extraterrestrial strength or his cache of rich man's toys.  And as long there is an evil megalomaniac from Mongo around, he won't be without a foe to pit them against.

Well, folks, time to fire up the retro rockets on the Plymouth (I wish).  Drive home safely.

Quiggy